


dreamt we spoke again

by selflessbellamy



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, Angst, Exes to Lovers, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-02-09 20:16:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18645334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/selflessbellamy/pseuds/selflessbellamy
Summary: Clarke Griffin. She is Clarke Griffin. There’s no way she can run from it, no matter how much she might want to; this realization had slapped her across the face, left a lasting ache in her heart so she’d gone home to drown her sorrows in cheap whisky.Hisfavorite cheap whisky…(or: Bellamy and Clarke were the lead singers of Delinquents before she left. It changed everything.)





	1. Chicago Rain

**Author's Note:**

> hello everyone 💞 i'm so happy that i can finally share this fic with you, and i'm even happier that i can tell you that it's complete! i'll be updating it every **monday and saturday** for the next five weeks. 
> 
> i really hope you'll enjoy reading it.
> 
> the title of the fic is from the song 'i dreamt we spoke again' by death cab for cutie. the lyrics at the end and the beginning are from 'sugar drunk high' by james bay
> 
> also, thank you so much to liz (theoneinquisitor) for all of your wonderful support. it has really meant the world to me.

_\-  If we ever grow up_

_We’ll be gone in the moment -_

 

_(Part 1)_

Boston, Massachusetts — February 2019

Sometimes she wishes the rain could wash her past away, but it’s impossible. Even though her days are doused in antiseptic, her once-wild spirit confined within bleak white walls, the smallest thing is enough to make her mind flood with memories: synthetic lights and distant cheers, his heart beating with hers like a bass drum.

Most days she wishes she could escape it.

And then there are days like this one: all it takes is a song on the radio, the burning taste of liquor on her tongue, or the weight of a pen in her hand to make her remember everything she misses. Sure, she can throw out the tabloids, and blacklist the Twitter tags and let her hair grow out, but she can’t avoid the remembrance.

Not when it takes the shape of a dream. Then it’s all him, and he is so real, his grin so intoxicatingly bright, his laughter warm enough to make her feel alive. He sings their song, his tongue curling around every soft syllable—

 

_Your body’s an anchor_

_Your heart’s a harbor_

_You’re all I need._

 

She stirs awake at once, finds herself slumped on the bed still dressed in her purple scrubs. As she glances to her left, she notices the half empty glass of Jack Daniels on her nightstand. At first she can’t think of any reason why she would drink that, knowing that she hates the taste of it, but then the thunder roars outside and she recalls her day in the ER: the teenage girl who recognized her despite her much-longer hair.

_“Oh my God, are you…?”_

Clarke Griffin. She is Clarke Griffin. There’s no way she can run from it, no matter how much she might want to; this realization had slapped her across the face, left a lasting ache in her heart so she’d gone home to drown her sorrows in cheap whisky.

 _His_ favorite cheap whisky…

Squeezing her eyes shut, Clarke rolls onto her stomach, reaching for her phone next to her. Before she can stop herself, she’s opened Safari and typed his name into the search bar. She hasn’t _said_ it in three years, so even writing it stabs at her heart.

The first thing that pops up in the search results is an article posted three weeks ago by Entertainment Weekly.

 

 **BELLAMY BLAKE Breaks His Silence on** **_Delinquents_ **

[ _There’s a photo attached of him grinning at the camera, carrying his trusted guitar._

_He’s wiped her red lipstick stain off the base of it]_

 

She’s pretty sure her heart shatters, but still her eyes remain fixed on the title and _him_ , looking so much like himself that it’s almost unfathomable. As she holds her breath, her thumb scrolls down of its own accord.

 **RILEY HAYES:** _We all love your new album and the different sound! I would really like to know which song was the most challenging to write?_

 **BELLAMY BLAKE:** [laughs] does every single one count? No, in all seriousness, the hardest one was definitely ‘Chicago Rain’; it was extremely personal and emotional. I was forced to deal with some suppressed feelings while I was writing it, but it was a rewarding experience nonetheless.

_Chicago rain? Did he really…?_

It takes all her remaining willpower not to open Spotify and click on the track immediately. Hearing his voice would break her even more, she knows this, just as she knows that buried deep within her camera roll are several videos of him calling her ‘Babe’ and strumming the strings of his guitar at daybreak; only she hasn’t watched them in ages.

Swallowing the tight lump in her throat, Clarke scrolls further until her eyes fall on a particular word, or _name_ more specifically.

 **RILEY HAYES:** _Is there anything you’re willing to share about your time with Delinquents? Or Clarke Griffin’s departure?_

 **BELLAMY BLAKE:** Departure? My god, you make it sound like she’s... Anyway, _Delinquents_ split three years ago. I don’t really see a point in discussing the past. Being a solo artist is much harder, ‘cause you have to figure it out on your own [laughs]. But I haven’t spoken to her in three years, don’t know what she’s up to, but it can’t possibly be music.

Because she abandoned music, even though creating it felt like breathing. She abandoned her friends, and she abandoned him. Now, she’s stuck here in Boston, acting as a medical intern in an ER, trying to pretend that she never had another life.

So when that girl recognized her today, the act fell apart, the past unraveled before her eyes: all of a sudden, she was the confident girl holding a microphone in the spotlight, jumping up and down on stage as the adrenaline pulsed through her veins. Still, as she told the girl, she had her reasons for leaving it all behind.

_“But didn’t you love it? What about Bellamy?”_

Clarke had frowned at her in effort to disguise the pain that those questions caused her. In spite of everything, she didn’t want to be rude to a fan. So she just checked the girl’s cast for the hundredth time and said, “ _I’m sure Bellamy’s doing fine without me. His new single is #2 on the Billboard Hot 100.”_

The interviewer stays in the lane of asking Bellamy questions about his old band, which is a bold move considering the fact that he was clearly not keen on the idea of discussing it further. On top of that, Clarke remembers how much he disliked doing interviews in general.

 **RILEY HAYES:** _Many fans have speculated that you dated [Griffin] off-stage during her time with the band. Is there any truth to those theories?”_

(Frankly, Clarke doesn’t know if she even wants to see what Bellamy answered, but her eyes wander without permission.)

 **BELLAMY BLAKE:** She was my muse, as cheesy as it sounds. Yeah… I guess she was the reason why I bothered writing anything in the first place. We spent so much time together during those years, a lot of sleepless nights. We did some things that we probably shouldn’t have, but it’s true. I loved her. Hell, maybe I still do.

There’s no telling how long she stares at those last two statements, thinking she must’ve imagined them. _Of course it can’t be real._ For Heaven’s sake, she hasn’t seen him in three years, there’s no way his new career path hasn’t made him forget all about her, about whatever it was that they had.

Right now, they are oceans apart, literally: the last time she checked he was in London on his European tour — and she is here, crumbling up like a piece of paper because of his words, but at the same time reeling from the possibility that he _hasn’t_ deemed her to the realm of oblivion.

She shoots a glance at her alarm clock. It’s 12:34 AM: not too late to go to her favorite bar downtown.

* * *

 

 

Though the bar is rather small it’s filled to the brim with memories that seem distant yet near at the same time, and she doesn’t understand how it’s possible that while she feels detached from the place it also appears to draw her in.

Fairy lights are lining the ceiling, creating a warm atmosphere that was especially soothing on the night before their first show. She was shaking as she stepped onto the small podium that served as a stage.

The owner, Luna Shore knows her well; after all, she’s a regular here. “Oh, Clarke. Nice to see you back. A G&T?”

“Definitely. Make it strong, please. Today was rough… Busy night?” she adds that last part while looking around at the sea of people that occupies the space. Raising an eyebrow, Luna simply nods before sliding the drink towards her, which Clarke downs in the matter of a couple seconds.

This makes Luna lean across the counter. “Woah, what’s wrong?”

For a moment, Clarke contemplates lying because that’s just much easier given the circumstances. However, she also knows that Luna is a walking bullshit-detector, so the hard truth is the only option she has.

Just as she has opened her mouth to explain, however, she is interrupted by the sound of a microphone being tapped before… “God, it’s so nice to be back in this place.”

Her heart stalls for three full seconds. _No, no. Fuck no._

_It can’t be._

Of its own accord, her head whips around despite how her entire body seems to be frozen. A million thoughts roar in her mind, jumble together but in the end they’re all variations of the same damn thing: _It’s him._

The same dark curls, the bronze skin and slight smirk — he’s here, and he’s _real,_ sitting on the small podium with his guitar a few feet from her. While the whirlwind of thoughts scream in her brain, it’s difficult to focus on what he says next, but she just manages to make out, “I promised that I would sing a couple songs… so yeah, gonna start with the newest single, I suppose? I hope you like the acoustic version.”

 

_“I know it’s much too late to say this_

_But it hurts too much to feel this_

_And still I wonder what went wrong,_

_How I could have hurt you so_

_When once it was just you_

_And me._

_In the Chicago rain.”_

 

Without warning, tears rise in her throat and start to burn in her eyes, but Clarke somehow manages to push her way through the crowd slowly.

 

_“I hear your voice in the water_

_Feel your lips on mine, and I guess_

_All I want to say_

_Is that I’m a screwed up mess_

_You were the only good thing_

_I ever had.”_

 

Finally she reaches the front row of spectators, squeezing in between two young girls who are staring at Bellamy with starry eyes. Her heart is pounding against her ribcage, goosebumps forming on her skin. _What will happen if he notices her standing here? Will everything dissolve and reveal itself as a short-lived dream?_ There’s a very loud part of her brain that screams for her to flee, to go back to safety, but…

_"O_ _h, take me back_

_To the wasted days_

_Nearing summer’s end_

_We were just…“_

 

Of course he doesn’t mean to trail off when he does, but at that exact moment he raises his eyes for the first time to look at the crowd, and they stumble upon hers. It’s as if her entire life rewinds in the span of a single second; her breath catches in her throat just when his jaw slacks.

“ _Clarke?_ ”

All the heads nearby turn to stare, causing her to feel like she’s shrinking slowly as panic flares in her veins. Desperate, she whips around, pushing people out of her way to clear her path.

_She needs to get to that damned door._

But he’s calling her name, and her instincts tell her to stop and look at him; just catch one real glimpse of the man she loved, the man who loved her back when her life wasn’t a wildfire. Struggling for breath, Clarke finally reaches the glass door, places her hand on it, but when she moves to push it open, she feels his warm hand grab her wrist. “Please, Clarke. Don’t do this.” These are the first words that he speaks to her in three fucking years, and they’re a broken plea emerging from his lips. “Not again.”

Even though she can feel the pain in his voice cut her like a knife, she doesn’t want to face him, terrified that she’ll see the hurt in those soft earthy eyes. Still, there’s no way she can desert him again, not like this.

“Outside.” Without waiting for him to react, Clarke pushes the glass door open and pulls him along as she steps into the arms of the chilly night breeze.

Knowing that anyone in the bar would be able to look at them through the window, she hurries around the corner, so they end up standing face-to-face in a narrow, dimly lit alley between two brick buildings. It’s strange that although the physical distance between them is at the smallest in what feels like an eternity, there are oceans between them.

He seems so far away, his dark brown eyes full of lightning as they stare into hers. For a while, silence weighs on the atmosphere, but not for a single second does he tear his eyes from hers; it’s as though he can’t decide if she’s actually real, and Clarke wishes she could melt into the brick wall behind her.

“You know, I left some notes for you back home in New York, but you never picked them up,” the words are swept in a forced laughter that makes her heart clench. “I liked to imagine that you’d run off to Paris or something, but you’ve been in fucking _Boston_ this whole time?!”

His anger stings, but she knows it’s not uncalled for. “You _promised._ You promised you’d come back.”

But she didn’t… When she walked away from everything, she was too caught up in her own feelings to think of what it would do to her friends, especially to him. Looking into his eyes now, she is forced to face the brutal consequences of her actions. It feels as if someone’s removing a Band-Aid in the cruelest, most excruciating way possible, and yet she has to endure it, because she can’t run anymore.

He has her cornered, confronted and she can no longer keep the act up, so she senses it crumble slowly, causing her knees to grow weak: _Clarke Griffin, ex lead singer of Delinquents; a traitor._ This is who she is — not the ER intern working long shifts for minimum wage, not the girl who saves lives.

_What can she say? How do you make amends for something like this?_

“I’m sorry,” she tries, choking on the tears that are clogging her throat. When she tries to avoid his eyes, Bellamy lifts her chin using his fingers, making their gazes connect. “I—it was my fault that the band failed. I couldn’t come back and find my life in ruins. I lost Dad; I lost the music… I lost _you_.”

At that, he scoffs, causing chills to course down her spine as if she was just dunked into a pool of icy water. Through gritted teeth, he says, “ _You left me!_ ” his words are dripping with bitterness and even mockery, anger flashing in his eyes.

The sight hits her with a sudden wave of nausea, but she manages to battle it. “I know I did.”  For some reason, she’s trying to match his anger all the while knowing that it won’t solve anything. “I _had_ to.”

Now, he moves away. “Fucking bullshit, Princess.”

Fury burns in her veins, and she yanks him back towards her. “You know what? When I left I thought you’d understand, that you loved me—“

“ _Loved you?_ Damn right I loved you! It just wasn’t enough, was it?”

In this moment, they’re all fire, feeding into each other, their eyes enticing one another like two separate flames desiring to melt together. She can feel the heat radiating off his body when her hand curls around his toned bicep of its own accord, his hot breath grazing her skin.

They don’t do anything to stop it. Their lips clash like blades in the middle of a battlefield, with precision and power. Judging from the way he bites her lower lip, his hunger is intense, as is hers. Bellamy growls into her mouth, causing shivers to course down her spine, and she responds by burying her fingertips in the chaos of his hair.

It’s a battle for dominance, but this time there’s no clear winner. While he encompasses her against the brick wall, stealing the air from her lungs, she claws at his muscled back in a way that makes him hiss in pure pleasure. Though she can feel his lips bruising hers, it’s only invigorating her further.

Kissing him is like rediscovering a drug.

She has been experiencing withdrawal for years, and it feels so good but it is so wrong. Or at least that’s what her brain is telling her: of the countless days spent scrolling down to the bottom of her camera roll with tears in her eyes, wishing that she could delete the videos and the pictures; of the daydreams that formed during the longest hours on-call, making her want to come back and be in his strong arms again.

Now she is, but not at all in the way she dreamt.

She’ll have to take what she can get. In a voice so breathy that it sounds unlike her own, Clarke says, “Fuck me. Right here,” feeling a warm rush of confident surge through her when he growls at her words.

“Where are your manners?”

“Sorry. I’m afraid I don’t know how to beg,” she replies with a smirk. In response to her sassiness, Bellamy bites at the sensitive skin below her jaw, then soothes the sting with the tip of his tongue, and she moans out loud.

“I’m not gonna fuck you out here if you can’t stay quiet.” After looking around nervously for a moment, Bellamy pushes her further into the corner, so that they’re engulfed by shadows, hidden from any potential, prying eyes. Then he unbuckles his belt, and she pulls him closer by the waist, eager to get her mouth on his again.

The darkness makes it difficult to see anything, but Clarke can still _feel_ him, his skin hot and smooth, his hard cock brushing against her center.

When they were younger, they used to sneak off to back rooms and sleazy restrooms to have sex, so this right here feels very familiar: Most of the undressing process is blurred by the vague taste of alcohol and passion. Clarke finds herself floating somewhere amongst the stars, blissfully ignorant of how wrong this actually is.

“You want me? I need a clear response, Clarke.”

Her heart swells with unexpected fondness. No matter how angry he is, he’ll never stoop low enough to do whatever the hell he wants with her. “ _Yes._ Is that clear enough for you?”

With a rather stiff nod, Bellamy lifts her off the ground easily, holding her by the thighs. When he pushes into her, it feels goddamn near unreal, and she only just manages to hold back a gasp. “ _God,_ ” she murmurs against his parted lips, pulling a little at his hair.

He has always filled her up so well. This time is no exception.

As he fucks into her, it becomes much harder to keep quiet, so their lips are glued together to muffle the sounds. It’s been so long since she had sex with him, but she remembers that it’s never been this hard, or this deep. Bellamy doesn’t seem to care much about the force of his thrusts, and his thumbs are definitely bruising the exposed skin of her thighs.

His tongue curls around hers, and his hand is gripping at her much-longer hair as he comes hard. Right away, he stops thrusting, breathing hotly against the column of her neck for a moment. When that moment has passed, he pulls out, leaving her behind without any warning, without a single goddamn word.

This is not the way it’s supposed to end.

It was _never_ supposed to be like this.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_(Part 2)_

Chicago, Illinois — March 2014

No obscene amount of rain would be able to defeat this wild mass of people. When Bellamy took a peak at the crowd earlier, he could barely see the end of it. Even though they’re _just_ a small, unknown band in the shadow of the big names that will be playing after them, it still feels surreal.

Reyes has pinched his arm three times in the span of an hour just for the hell of it, defending it by saying ‘you were spacing out, dude’, which — to be fair — he probably was.

But he isn’t the only one who’s anxious, judging by the way Monroe is restlessly beating the floor with their drumsticks. For a minute, he scans the space backstage until he finds the person he’s looking for: Clarke is standing alone a corner, teeth digging into her bottom lip and arms crossed over her chest.

When he’s walked over there, she looks at him with an expression that can only be described as filled with sheer horror. “I can’t remember the lyrics, Bell. To any of it… shit, I’m gonna fuck it up.”

Usually, she isn’t this out of it before shows, but with a crowd as huge as this one it’s understandable. Hell, Bellamy’s stomach has been tying itself into a knot in the past hour. “Listen…” he starts, reaching for her hand. As always, her ivory skin is soft, making him feel all the more secure. “You won’t be alone up. We’ll fuck it up together.”

That makes her snort a little, and he chooses to take it as a small yet important triumph.

“It’s _Utopia_ first, right?”

“Yeah. Sing it with me… Maybe it’ll calm you down.”

At that, a tiny smirk starts pulling at the corners of her mouth, infectious as ever. Though he senses a familiar warmth spread through his chest at the sight, Bellamy shakes himself out of it. Because that’s the right thing to do, after all…

 

_“A night of stardust and fire, we’re falling out of line_

_Marching to the sound of our own heartbeats_

_Yelling to the skies that we’re here,_

_As we are_

_As we were_

_Here to stay.”_

 

They wrote this song together on the roof of the studio, sitting close enough that their arms and knees were rubbing against one another; by the time they finished it the first, weak rays of the sunrise were beginning to conquer the horizon. Too exhausted to travel home on the subway, they both fell asleep on the faux leather couch, a mess of limbs at the crack of dawn. The last thing he remembers feeling is her nose pressing against his jawline.

 

_“But you won’t give us Utopia_

_You won’t listen to our roars_

_In the end we’re all teeth and claws_

_Just trying to make it_

_This lonely world_

_Was never really ours.”_

 

Less than an hour later, Bellamy’s clutching Clarke’s hand as they walk out onto the big stage. The screams that erupt from the crowd when they come into view are deafening, and Raven gives them a single nod of reassurance before she takes her position. With one last squeeze, he lets go off Clarke’s hand, murmuring, “Everything will be okay.”

Still, grabbing the microphone has never been more daunting; the expectations have never been so great or the pressure so fucking heavy.

As Shaw and Reyes drum the bass strings to slowly begin the first song, Clarke bravely yells, “WE ARE _DELINQUENTS!_ ”

 **[Arkadia Festival @ARKFEST:** @Delinquents_Music seem to be making a strong debut if the noise of the crowd is anything to go by.]

Once they’ve started playing, the six songs that they have the permission to play pass in what seems like a moment. Before he knows it, he’s breathing the last word of the final song into the microphone, his forehead resting against Clarke’s.

And the people lose their collective _shit._

Listening to the noise is unreal, adrenaline pumping through his veins as his best friend cracks a radiant grin at him. Right now, all it would take is a millisecond of wild impulse, of not giving a damn, to press his lips to hers. But she looks so relieved, so _alive,_ the shades of blue in her eyes seeming more brilliant than ever before, and he doesn’t want to spoil this feeling.

He doesn’t want to ruin it for her.

Above them, the angry sky is a stark contrast to the atmosphere: The downpour from the dark gray clouds is soaking every single member of the audience. Luckily, they don’t seem to mind much, but their equipment is in danger of being damaged — something that Reyes doesn’t hesitate to remind them of — and they are forced to rush off stage.

[ **Zeke Shaw @delinquentShaw:** Seriously, fuck the rain. Thank you so much to those who came out to support us today @ARKFEST. We love you!]

Being the people with the least amount of musical equipment to pack, Bellamy and Clarke are the first band members to feel the heavy rain against their heated skin. It makes him feel invigorated, slightly drunk on the remaining adrenaline, but it seems to be the same for her, as she releases a scream of triumph.

“We fucking did it, Bell!”

 _You did,_ is all he can think while a strong sense of pride and fondness surges through him. Grinning, she grabs his hand and they sprint towards the rented tour bus, but their merged laughter isn’t watered down by the rain. But at the middle of the huge parking lot, she stops and turns without warning, making his chest crash into hers.

Then it hits her that it just them: two euphoric kids caught in a downpour. In front of him, she is soaked to the core, her clothes clinging to her curves; so breathtakingly beautiful, tangible…

He kisses her without thinking about it, even though his heart is beating a tattoo against his ribcage. It only takes her a second to respond, which is enough to send panic through his body, but feeling her hands, warm against the back of his neck, has him relaxing against her.

 _Fuck. Why did he do this?_ Now that he knows what her lips taste like, he will never be able to stop thinking about them.

When she draws back slightly, she’s _giggling —_ a sound that he has only heard once before when they’d been awake for almost twenty-four hours trying to finish a song, and she was so tired she started laughing at all of his terrible jokes.

_Does she think this is a joke, too?_

“I’m serious about this.” Before he can stop them, the words have pushed their way past his lips. “Are you?”

Her jaw slackens for her a moment, making him want to take it back immediately, but to his surprise she kisses him again, pouring passion into it when she parts her lips for him and _moans_ into his mouth.

That’s all the confirmation he needs.

With the same renewed desire, Bellamy sucks a few raindrops off her upper lip and wraps his hand within the soaked waves of her goldent hair. Whimpering, she presses herself further against him, so that he has to work ten times harder to keep hold of his self-control, because there’s no way he’s risking their relationship by moving too fast.

In the end, he’s the one who pulls away. “Look, I just wanna kiss.”

Clarke rolls her eyes at this. “You wouldn’t be saying that if I weren’t still seventeen.”

Just to annoy her, he chuckles warmly and presses his finger to the tip of her nose. “But you are. And whether you like it or not, we have to wait. Also, this isn’t _just_ about you being a minor. You should be _completely_ ready, Clarke—God, stop complaining, you brat.” He laughs teasingly when she pouts. Then he cups her cheek, gazing at her as his heart swells in his ribcage. “I love you. I don’t wanna hurt you.”

When she wraps her arms around his waist, Bellamy picks her up off the ground and carries her into the tour bus. She hurries to the small sink to wring water out of her hair, but her eyes never leave his, “Hey Bell… I love you, too.”

Sure, they’ve been saying it for a couple years now, yet this time it feels different.

 

_\- Gas light flicker in your eyes,_

_What are hopeless dreams? -_


	2. Bruise

_ (Part 1) _

New York City, New York — June 2014

 

“Your voice, it’s like, the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” he says, pulling her closer to press a lingering kiss to her temple. 

Of course, he’s said the same thing in a myriad of ways countless times before, but he’ll never tire of pointing it out: When she sings, Clarke gets this strikingly fierce look in her blue eyes, so that they almost look  _ electric _ — it’s stunning, breathtaking like watching the sun rise slowly behind the skyscrapers. 

Right now, that look is lasting in her gaze, but it is mixed with something else:  _ lust…  _ Feeling his own jaw slack, Bellamy tries to protest as she lets her fingertip trail along the vein in his bicep. Still, when it emerges it is nothing short of a weak stammer, “Clarke, come on—”

“What? I’m eighteen now.”

“Yeah, and  _ I’m  _ trying to be romantic.” 

At that she rolls her eyes affectionately before stepping into his arms for a hug. Out here on the balcony in the earliest hour of the morning, the air is chilly as it sweeps across their exposed skin. When his arms wrap around her smaller frame, she sighs against his chest, making his heart swell. All that he wants is for her to feel safe around him. 

(Hell, he’s told himself that he would not have sex with her until she  _ vocalized _ that she was comfortable with him. Maybe it’s a bit ridiculous, given that they have been close friends for more than three years now, but whatever — he’s  _ trying  _ to be a gentleman.)

“You know,” she says, looking up at him. “If you want to be romantic, you should kiss me like you mean it.”

Partly to please her and partly to display his own confidence, Bellamy gives in by capturing her lips with his own in a deep kiss. Tonight, she tastes like peppermint chapstick, and the scent of lavender from her hair seems stronger than ever, encompassing him as he wraps his fingers in her soft locks. 

She moans into it, kissing him back with her usual vigor. This time, he doesn’t try to make himself immune to the temptation, which might bite him in the ass later, but right now he doesn’t give a shit. Boldly, he breaks their kiss only to graze her sensitive pulse point with his teeth, making her gasp louder than he’s ever heard before; the sound sends shivers down his spine, evokes something quite foreign and primal within him. At the following moment, he has lifted her off her feet, determined to carry her like something precious, handle her with the care that she so deserves. 

It’s been three months since they shared their first kiss on that rainy night on Chicago. Every time their lips meet, his mind wanders back to that moment. One thing is certain: he will never forget it. 

In their small studio, there’s an old faux leather couch that has seen much better days and probably needs retirement, but it’s good enough for this: Bellamy plops down on it, not being able to stand much longer, which Clarke sees as an opportunity to get her hands all over his chest. 

_ Fuck.  _ He should want her to stop, but…

Too late. 

When she rakes her blunt nails down the hard lines of his abs, a strangled growl tears loose from his throat. Because they’ve been awake all night working on the album, the responsible part of his brain is easily undertaken by the the pleasure. Clarke grinds her hips, a movement that goes straight to his dick, and he moans loudly as his head drops to her shoulder for a second. 

“We don’t have a condom,” he reminds her then, trying to look stern. However, he most likely looks  _ wrecked.  _ “This ain’t happening.” 

The smile that she gives him is bright and confident, a stark contrast to the light pink color that has settled in her cheeks. “Relax, Bell. We don’t need one.” With this response, she unbuckles his belt, her sapphire eyes gleaming as she drags the zipper down. Of their own accord, his hips raise a little off the couch, and she wastes no time at all, pulling his pants down past his ass as though she’s done it a thousand times before. 

Only once she has moved from his lap to kneel in between his legs does it fully dawn on him. “Woah, woah, hey—” Bellamy places a hand heavily on her shoulder, which has her looking up at him. At first he doesn’t know what to say, and then he feels the desire burn deep in his chest. “Not yet.”

At that she pouts, but not only that: she rubs her thighs together with a low, impatient whine. “But I’m so—” by now, her cheeks are scarlet like the sunrise. Bellamy can’t help but smile at the sight. With care, he lifts her chin with his finger so that their eyes connect. Then he gives her a chaste yet lingering kiss.

“Yeah, and I want to taste you. Make you feel even better.”

Her jaw slacks at his direct words. 

It would be an outright lie to say that he has never imagined what she would taste like, which sounds she would make if he dipped his tongue into her heat. Sure, he’s harder right now than he’s been in his entire life, but he’ll be able to manage it through eating her out, he’s sure of it. Of course, he needs her permission first. 

To showcase his patience with her, he nuzzles her, cradling the back of her head. “Can I please taste you, Baby?” 

Clarke mewls, rubbing her thighs together again. “You… You really want to?” As he nods enthusiastically, she unzips her pants and — to his amazement — moves her hand down the front of her pants, into her underwear. Bellamy can’t believe his own eyes, his mouth goes slightly dry with sheer  _ want  _ when a breathy moan slips past her lips. 

When she pulls her fingers out again, they’re glistening with her arousal, and Bellamy doesn’t hesitate, leaning forward slightly to suck them into his mouth. The taste of her is intoxicating as soon as it reaches the tip of his tongue, and the primal sensation that struck his chest earlier flames up again, because  _ this is all for him.  _

Bellamy opens his eyes to find her pupils blown wide. 

“You want more?”

“ _ More? _ ” he says, his voice gruff with hunger. “I want all of it. Every last drop.”

That’s how his face ends up buried between her legs. With incredible ardour, he licks into her, listening to every loud moan, gasp and whimper that his tongue pulls out of her throat. 

The flow of her juices seems endless, and he can’t complain, even though he finds himself having to grind against the couch for some relief.  At first he’s too wound up in his desire to please her to mind, but eventually the strain becomes unbearable, forcing him to remove his pants and boxers. 

Bellamy sucks at her clit carefully, causing her to tug at his hair. “ _ Oh, please— Bell,  _ I can’t take it anymore,” her voice sounds like a sob and her thighs are quivering, so he decides to take pity on her. 

“Look at me for a sec,” he says gently, brushing his thumb across her cheekbone. Though it takes her a minute, Clarke opens her eyes. As soon as he has her full attention, he dips two long fingers into her. She  _ shudders  _ with the rush of pleasure; this is a different kind, but she seems to appreciate the change and the eye contact that they can maintain now. 

While he fucks her with his fingers, she fights to keep her eyes open to look at him, and his heart swells repeatedly as her beauty strikes him harder than ever before. After a minute of relishing this moment, Bellamy crooks his fingers until he feels her walls clench around them. Finally reaching the high makes her moan his name.

“God, I love you,” is the first thing she says, giggling against his sternum after five minutes of simply resting in his arms. Bellamy kisses the top of her head, unclasps her bra so that he can pay some much-deserved attention to her breasts, massaging them with his fingertips. But that comes to an abrupt end when she continues, “And I really wanna suck your dick now, thank you very much.”

He snorts out a laugh. Still, she remains adamant, raising an eyebrow at him. “I’m fucking serious. Lie down.”

“I already am.”

Most likely as payback for the sassy response, Clarke grabs his cock and jerks it without warning, stealing the air from his lungs. When she twirls her thumb around the tip, he bites back a needy whimper and gives into her demand. 

Though the first suck is definitely experimental, it still takes him by surprise how little she hesitates. However, she doesn’t repeat the action immediately, pulling back to kiss his shaft. “... You’re a lot bigger than I thought,” is what she says, making him choke on nothing. 

Blood rises to his cheeks. “You don’t have to do it. It’s alright, Clarke—”

But she is not someone who backs down easily, he knows this, and therefore it shouldn’t surprise him that she cuts him off by giving him another, much more confident suck. White flashes behind his eyelids, and he has to dig his teeth into his lower lip to prevent himself from coming right then. 

She does it again, taking more of him this time. Still biting his lip, Bellamy runs his fingers through his hair, fighting to keep his cool. If he doesn’t this will all end embarrassingly fast. What’s more important to him, however, is that Clarke seems to be enjoying herself, chuckling when an open-mouthed kiss to the base of his shaft makes him stir. 

“Fucking hell, Princess.”

More than anything else, these words seem to empower her. Determined, she hollows her cheeks, breathing through her nose as she takes as much of him as possible, flattening her tongue against the underside of his shaft while she works at the rest of him with her hand. The groan that’s released from his throat is almost animalistic, like a breathy roar. 

“Yeah, come on baby—you’re doing so good for me.” 

Shit, he doesn’t even know what he’s saying, because everything is a blur of pleasure. When she whimpers around him, stars form behind his eyelids and he only just manages to stammer out a warning before he comes, his fingers wrapped in her messy hair. 

When he’s finally able to open his eyes again, still breathing heavily, he notices a bit of his load clinging to the corner of her mouth — which he wipes off with his thumb right away — but there’s none on her chest or chin, as he’d expected. “Did you…?”

She’s blushing, which only adds to her radiance, makes her look like a fucking  _ goddess  _ in the golden sunlight streaming through the windows. As she nods, her eyes are full of pride, making him wrap his arms around her waist, press his fingers to the dimples in her lower back. “Incredible. Wow.”

Then he kisses her, pouring passion into it, which seems to surprise her if the sound she makes at the back of her throat is anything to go by. Drawing back, her eyes are full of stars, and the sight makes his heart leap. “Was this your first blowjob?” she asks curiously, but can’t help the rush of pink that creeps into her cheeks. 

“Technically, yes.” 

At that, her brow furrows in confusion — she looks adorable. “What do you mean by _technically_?”

He shrugs, can’t fight his own grin. “I’ve only  _ given  _ one before.” 

It takes a moment for it to dawn on her, but the realization makes her entire expression change; she lights up with surprise, her curiosity clearly sparking once more, and he  _ would  _ tell her more about it if he hadn’t promised Atom that he’d never tell anyone.

Last year, there was one late afternoon when it was only the two of them in the shower after football practice. Bellamy was trying to distract himself from staring by acting his part as the captain, telling his teammate to work on his run blocks. They bickered about it for a minute until Bellamy found himself pressed up against the wall, breathless as he gazed into Atom’s stormy gray eyes. 

Suddenly they were kissing, a little clumsily, but it felt empowering and in the end he dropped to his knees without thinking much about it. Afterwards, when Bellamy tried to kiss him goodbye, Atom frantically told him that he wasn’t out yet and that no one could know what happened. 

So no one ever will. 

“Haven’t I told you that I’m into men?” Honestly, he thought he had at some point, but she shakes her head, the bright grin lasting on her face. “Okay… Now you know, I guess. Does it make any difference?”

“Bellamy, you know I’m hella bi. If anything, this just makes you more of a keeper.”

Once she’s said this, he leans in to rest his forehead against hers, and she gives him a chaste kiss that makes his heart flutter. “I guess we should finish this song before we both pass out.”

 

* * *

 

 

_ (Part 2) _

Boston, Massachusetts — February 2019

 

When she wakes up alone in her bed the next morning, a dull ache lingering between her legs, Clarke grabs the bottle of Jack off the nightstand and pours it down the kitchen sink drain. Yet he remains in her mind, rough around the edges like a mountain, too angry to stay with her or even hold her — just for a minute — as he used to.

Then she pops a morning after pill, washing it down bitterly.

The nausea that ensues over the next couple hours as she busies herself with some long-overdue laundry is so strong that she curls up on the bathroom floor. However, not long has passed before her phone rings.

It’s  _ his  _ number that flashes across her screen; the one that has been etched into her brain for years. Groaning, she contemplates letting it go to voicemail, not being in the mood to talk to anyone — especially not him — at the moment, nausea looming like a monster in the pit of her stomach.

Still, she picks up anyway. A couple seconds of complete silence go by, long enough to make her want to flush her phone down the toilet, but then Bellamy speaks, his voice ragged, “... Are you alright?”

“I took a morning after pill, so at least you don’t have to worry about, you know,  _ that. _ ” The words all but fly out of her mouth, as though she didn’t hear his initial question, soaked in genuine care.

“Jesus, Clarke, that’s not why I called.”

Sitting up, she crosses her legs and sighs, “I’m nauseous, if that’s what you wanna know. And bruised.” While none of it is untrue, she’s being cruel to him and a very loud part of her brain actively hates her for it, spitting out curses, but it’s easy to swallow the guilt while she traces her fingertip across the blooming purple prints that his thumbs have left on her pale skin. 

Just for the Hell of it, she deadpans, “So, are  _ you  _ alright?”

Bellamy’s quiet for a long moment. “No, I’m not.”

Somehow, she hadn’t expected him to be this blunt, so she’s thrown off course and forgets all about the row of snarky remarks hidden up her sleeve. Instead, she opts for saying, “Well, at least we’re on the same page.”

“Yeah.”

Clarke fidgets with the edge of her blue sleep shorts, distracting herself so that she doesn’t do something stupid, like burst into tears. What hurts the most is not knowing what will happen next, because while this seems very much like the end of it all, the final chapter of their story, so did the moment three years ago where she deleted her social media accounts and built her new life from the bottom up.

As the silence between them draws out, she can hear some muffled voices in the background, tries to make out what they’re saying to focus on anything  _ but  _ the nothingness that is eating away at their already-shattered relationship.

Before she’s had time to think about it, she’s asked, “You still at the bar?”

“Fell asleep while I was writing. You know how it is,” his response seems rushed, his voice somewhat detached as glasses clink in the distance.

Running a hand through her hair, Clarke swallows hard. “Yes, I—I remember.”

“’Course you do.” The words are strained, as though he’s trying to keep the bitterness from poisoning them. For the past three years, she’s often found herself wondering what it would be like to talk to him over the phone again. Now that she is she wishes for nothing more than the end of the conversation.

Still, he has one more thing to say. “Just so we’re clear, I will never do anything like that to you again.”

“What? Fuck me or hurt me?”

His answering laugh is as tense as it gets; frankly, it doesn’t even sound like him. “Both.” Then he hangs up, leaving her to glare at the screen for a full minute. She tries not to pay attention to her trembling hand.

If she’s learned anything from this awful conversation it’s that he’s not the man she left behind; of course, she couldn’t have expected that he would be, but whenever she dreamt about him he was always the same kind, understanding Bellamy. The man who just hung up on her, the man who fucked her against a brick wall yesterday, is someone she never knew he could be.

 

* * *

 

During the following week, Clarke finds herself returning to Atlantis bar; sometimes just to have a chat with Luna or Roan, sometimes to stare at the small podium at the other end of the room — the microphone seems to be waiting for someone,  _ anyone  _ to grab it, and on this particular night her hands are so restless that she has to sit on them to prevent her fingers from drumming a melody on the surface of the counter. 

For some reason, she wishes the music from the stereo was a bit louder, but right now it simply serves as a type of background noise. Since she left  _ Delinquents,  _ the only genre of music that she has had the heart to listen to is classical: the sound of strings has always had a calming effect on her, so it’s a perfect way to end a long day at the ER. 

Coming back to this particular bar has the same influence on her as the classical music; it slows her world down, even if only for an hour or two.

But tonight her serenity is brought to an abrupt halt.

Tonight, she actually sees Bellamy walk onto the podium, and it takes all her strength not to hiss at Luna,  _ ‘Why didn’t you say he’d be here?’ _ . Still, her eyes seem drawn to him as he runs his fingers through his messy hair, but he doesn’t pick up the microphone. Instead he sits down on the edge of the podium, carrying his favorite acoustic guitar. 

Though there’s a considerable distance between them, Clarke can see that his hands are trembling slightly.  _ Is he nervous? That’s unlike him,  _ especially given that the crowd of spectators is much smaller than what he’s used to. 

Despite knowing that she should leave, an unknown feeling keeps her anchored in place as he speaks, “I’ve decided to do something different this time. How would you guys like a cover?” his voice is slightly hoarse, but as a singer you get used to the feeling of a sore throat. His decision to not sing his own song is well-received by the bar guests, if their enthusiastic yelling is anything to go by. Nevertheless, it’s unusual.  

Intriguing, even, she must admit. 

Confident that he hasn’t noticed her and that he can’t currently see her, Clarke stays where she is. 

When he begins to sing, her eyelids flutter closed of their own accord. 

 

_ “ _ _ I'm going under and this time I fear there's no one to save me _

_ This all or nothing really got a way of driving me crazy _

_ I need somebody to heal _

_ Somebody to know _

_ Somebody to have _

_ Somebody to hold _

_ It's easy to say _

_ But it's never the same _

_ I guess I kinda liked the way you numbed all the pain.” _

 

Clarke hasn’t heard the song before, but that’s not surprising because she hasn’t listened to the radio in three years. That being said, these lyrics cause something within her to shatter — most likely her heart. Bellamy sounds as if he’s on the brink of tears, as if each word is being pushed out of his throat by the force of internal sobs. Hearing it makes a searing kind of pain settle in the pit of her stomach, and there’s nothing she can do except sit here and take it. 

 

_ “Now the day bleeds _

_ Into nightfall _

_ And you're not here _

_ To get me through it all _

_ I let my guard down _

_ And then you pulled the rug...” _

 

_ Fuck.  _ Finally, it dawns on her: he’s singing this to  _ her,  _ in his mind, not knowing that she’s actually here to witness it. All this time. This is what he wants her to know.

 

_ “I was getting kinda used to being someone you loved.” _

 

_ Oh no…  _

The words shake her to the core; it feels as if the entire room dissolves until there is nothing left but emptiness, and the two of them. You could hear a  pin drop, the only sound cutting through the silence being Bellamy’s distinctive, dark voice.

At the bottom of her ribcage, the shards of her heart ache with the brutal truth: When she left him behind, it wasn’t just an abandonment in the physical sense — she, who had always been there to give him a hug through the hard times, turned her back on him without the slightest warning or explanation. 

She loved him, and she still let him down.

Only once the heavy impact of this realization has landed on her, making her feel slightly dizzy, does she come to her senses. Looking up, she studies his face for the first time; it’s contorted in what looks like pain, his jaw and mouth twitching with each word, but it’s also horrifyingly —  _ unnaturally —  _ pale, as though the bronze has seeped from it like a mere liquid. 

There are the countless, tiny beads of sweat covering  _ his entire face,  _ not just his forehead as always. 

Before she has even fully registered that something’s wrong, Clarke is walking towards the podium, taking large steps. By the time she reaches it, he’s singing what must be the last verse, but she doesn’t care about interrupting as she walks onto the podium. 

Bellamy turns his head.

His eyes are dull and glazed over as they settle on her. Just like he’d done a week ago, he gets to his feet quickly, even makes the first move towards her, her name lingering on the tip of his tongue like a prayer, but this time he doesn’t make it far, toppling over so that she has to jump forward to catch him. 

“Bell—” the rest of his name gets lost in her throat, overpowered by panic. Seeing that he’s completely collapsed in her arms now, Clarke kneels and cradles his head. Pressing her hand to his clammy forehead, the burn of it is so intense that she wonders how on Earth he managed to stay upright for as long as he did. “Bellamy... Can—can you hear me?”

Even though his response is an incoherent mumble, it does confirm that he’s conscious. To soothe him, Clarke brushes her fingertips through his soft hair. When she looks up, she sees the doorman, Roan, struggle to get all of the guests to leave in a calm manner as they all frantically murmur about ‘ _ what the hell just happened—?’ _

For some reason, she hadn’t even noticed that Luna’s standing next to them now that the bar is mostly deserted. “Should I call an ambulance?”

“No, I don’t think that’s necessary. His heartbeat is steady, he’s showing no signs of troubled breathing or—”

“Then what  _ do  _ we do? We can’t just leave him here!”

Irrationally angered by this, Clarke shoots a glare at Luna. “Of course we can’t! If Roan wants to help me move him to my car, I’ll admit him to the ER.” 

  
  


* * *

 

It takes Bellamy almost five hours to wake up fully conscious of his surroundings. When he does, Clarke is slumped in the uncomfortable chair by his bedside, not worried about what it will do to her back. As soon as she sees his eyelids flutter open, however, she jolts up and grabs her clipboard, clutching it like a lifeline. 

This is it. In a minute,  _ he will know.  _

After scanning his surroundings for a while, his eyes finally find her. “Clarke…” she feels her entire body freeze in place when his brow furrows. “What’s going on?”

Sucking in a sharp breath, she walks around his bed, looking down at the clipboard, on which there is currently  _ zero  _ useful information. “You passed out, so I took you to the ER. Right now, they’re still running tests—they think it could be glandular fever, but personally, well maybe it could just be the cause of sleep deprivation and dehydration. I—”

“Woah, slow down. Why are you dressed like that?”

His question makes her heart soften for some reason, and she manages a small smile before she says, “I work here.”

Empowered by her own statement, Clarke strides towards him as she would with any regular patient. “I’m on call. Now, please let me fill you in: When we arrived here, your temperature was dangerously high and you were severely dehydrated, so they’ve given you an IV with fluids, and some ibuprofen… You are going to be  _ fine,  _ okay?”

When she presses her palm to his burning forehead, Clarke notices the corner of his mouth twitch upward in a tiny half-smile. “So, you’re like a nurse or something?” Honestly, she finds it a bit strange that he hasn’t already put those pieces together, but fever can blur your thoughts. Or maybe he just can’t believe that she didn’t spend the past three years painting in Montmartre like he might have originally thought. 

“I’m only an intern.”

Because his dark eyes are glazed over from the fever, the smile that he gives her doesn’t quite show in them, but simply picturing it is enough to make her feel breathless. “I should’ve figured you’d leave the Rock’N’Roll world to do something more important.” 

Clarke has to combat the urge to squint.  _ What does he mean by that? Is it just another carefully-planned jab at her for leaving?  _

Before she can become too suspicious, however, he must read her mind, because he adds, “I mean, medicine is  _ objectively  _ more important than music. It saves lives.” Clarke has no idea if it’s the illness that’s making him seem as mild as she remembers him; suddenly his tone of voice bears no bitter poison. In fact, it’s soft as the spring breeze. 

Maybe that’s why she places her hand on top of his, gives it a single squeeze. “Music saves lives, too.” 

In a surprisingly comfortable silence, they stay like that for a few minutes until he can no longer keep his eyes open. Even though she’s not sure he’s fully asleep, Clarke moves a dark curl of his hair off his clammy forehead. Then she whispers, “Do you remember this one?”

And as though it has remained the most natural thing in the world to her, she begins to sing, her voice delicate yet clear. The words flow from her lips now, unstoppable; perhaps they were tattooed onto her beating heart. 

 

_ “If you should ever leave here _

_ And not take me with you _

_ I promise you I’ll search every night _

_ Yeah, I’ll look for you, _

_ in the stars—” _

 

_ “True, they might seem so small, _

_ but you shine as bright as them  _

_ I know that you’ll guide me _

_ Yeah, you’ll lead me back _

_ To where I belong.” _

 

Unable to bear the heavy weight of emotion, her steady pitch cracks, and to her immediate surprise Bellamy croaks, “I—I’ve missed it. Your voice…” Her breath hitches in her throat, but he holds her hand so tightly that she doesn’t know to let it go again.

Suddenly he corrects himself, “No, actually, I just really fucking miss _ you. _ ”


	3. Lies Stick to Teeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry that i didn't update yesterday, but i wanted to wait until people had time to process their GOT depression™ and i also kina wanted this fic to reach 100 kudos before updating, because it'll get more attention now (hopefully). 
> 
> there is a very interesting revelation about bellamy and clarke's relationship in this chapter 👀
> 
> enjoy! :)

_ (Part 1) _

Boston, Massachusetts — February 2019

 

When Bellamy is discharged the next morning, most of the color has returned to his face, and yet the stars are still absent from his dark eyes, which makes her heart sting a little bit. Or maybe the reason for it is that she’s watching him put on his jacket and ruffle his own hair. 

_ He is leaving,  _ and for some reason it’s difficult to witness. Also, she can’t help but fear that he’ll not return to Atlantis bar after awkwardly collapsing on the podium. 

“Well, I’m sure the tabloids have written a dozen articles about my stunt already,” Bellamy says, managing a slight smirk in her direction. For some reason, Clarke has to bite back the urge to tease him, to say something like:  _ don’t flatter yourself _ , but they don’t have that sort of relationship anymore. 

She wonders whether he remembers what he said after she sang for him — about missing her. If he does he’s either pretending not to, or he’s acting as if it doesn’t matter. Now that he’s standing in front of her, she reaches out instinctively to fix his collar, which has their eyes locking for a moment that seems to last a lifetime, and yet it’s not long enough. 

Clearing her throat, Clarke asks, “Do you have your prescription?”

In silent response, Bellamy pulls the box of ibuprofen from his inner pocket and wiggles it between them. Then he sighs, “I’m gonna be fine, Princess.” His sudden use of the nickname hits her like a train; she can feel her own jaw slacking. The last time he said it was in the alley next to Atlantis — he’d spat it out at her like a curse lingering from the past. 

Here, it carried its usual edge of fondness. 

Before she knows it she has wrapped her arms around him, and though it takes a moment for Bellamy to react he doesn’t back away. Instead, he encompasses her, pulls her closer until she presses her nose into his broad shoulder; the scent that meets her nostrils is so heartbreakingly familiar that her breath hitches around a sob. 

“You missed the hugs, huh?” His words are soft, murmured against her hair, but his following chuckles sound downright painful, as if she just stabbed him. “Yeah... Me too.”

After a brief minute, Bellamy draws back—or, at least he tries to, because her arms are still holding onto his. He swallows hard enough that it makes his Adam’s apple bob, and when he says her name it’s gut-wrenching, “ _ Clarke _ , please.”

“I can’t—” her voice is but a whisper, a prayer that sticks to the heavy air between them. “Let you go.” The last part pushes past her lips without permission, and the true meaning of the words only dawn on her once they’ve been spoken. Last night in the bar, she’d loathed the sight of him, thinking their love had been reduced to the bruises on her thighs, but when he collapsed in her arms her heart burst into tears. 

Seeing him in that hospital bed pulled her voice out of its comfortable hiding... 

Though his eyes are shadowed by sadness, they are trained onto hers. “I’m afraid you already did.” 

With those words, he turns on his heel, but before he can reach the door, Clarke speaks up, her voice trembling with desperation, “Oh yeah? Say that to the photos and videos at the end of my camera roll; to the guitar at the back of my closet and the unopened bottle of Jack in my fridge— or the Polaroids used as bookmarks, or— that sweater below my bed!” 

Her hands have curled into shaking fists along her sides when he finally turns, still holding onto the doorknob; he looks stunned, frozen in place. “... You still have my  _ sweater _ ?”

Aware of the tears that have sprung forward in her eyes, Clarke sniffles and fights to keep her voice steady. “And the message you left on top of it. We just found out that—”

“—You weren’t pregnant. Yes, I remember just  _ fine _ ,” he interrupts, the look of painful anger returning to his face. Before she can think of anything to say, Bellamy continues, “It’s funny. I’ve always wondered, if you had been, would you have stayed?”

_ Oh God… _

Clarke doesn’t get the chance to answer, since at that very moment a resident ER doctor, Dr. Singh, walks into the room. “Don’t keep the patients hanging around, Miss Griffin. I need you to grab some copies for me upstairs… you were discharged an hour ago, I believe.”

The doctor narrows her eyes at Bellamy, who throws a last look at Clarke before hurrying out. 

For the entire rest of the day, there’s a permanent lump of tears clogging her throat.

 

* * *

There are more remnants of her relationship with Bellamy in her apartment than she thought: the first thing she does when she comes home that evening is dig his old navy blue sweater out from under the bed. Honestly, she doesn’t even remember how it ended up there, but she always knew she had it, because she stole it before she left for good. 

After staring at it for a long minute, Clarke lets the soft fabric slip through her fingers and brings it to her nose. Her heart all but drops to the bottom of her ribcage; it no longer smells of him. As it turns out, even the most amazing colognes can be overpowered by years of dust. If she’d only taken it out and worn it every once in a while, maybe it wouldn’t have lost its grace. 

When her phone buzzes, she nearly jumps, blinks away the tears in her eyes. She hates that her heart leaps at the thought:  _ Could it be him?  _ But of course it isn’t. It’s Luna, asking for an update on him. Not in the mood to write anything about it right now, Clarke opens her gallery instead, and — despite knowing that she  _ shouldn’t  _ — scrolls down until she reaches the bottom. In the past three years, she has never dared to look this far. 

And nothing could have prepared her for the wave of emotion that crashes over her; it brings a sharp pain to her heart, a searing sting to her eyes, and there’s nothing she can do to prevent it now. The first old picture is of him lying shirtless on his back; she has captured him mid-laugh, his entire face is radiant like the Southern sun. Their fingers are intertwined, even if she’s mostly hidden behind the camera. 

Clarke gulps. There’s a video next. 

Unable to hold herself back, she presses play, setting Bellamy into motion: he’s reading and smiling, immersed in his own world. Very few people know how much he loves literature, and even fewer are allowed to tease him about it, but she was one of the lucky ones:

“ _ You big nerd. _ ” 

When he turns to look at her, there is not a trace of annoyance on his face. In fact, his eyes are crinkling with sheer amusement. “ _ If you want some attention, you could just ask me to read to you instead of poking me with your icicle feet. _ ”

_ Oh god, he used to complain about her cold feet all the fucking time.  _ Thinking about it almost makes her smile. Almost… 

Then she responds from behind the camera. “ _ Read to me, please? _ ” 

“ _ Sure. Come here, Babe. _ ”

The video cuts off as she’s cuddling against his side, and only once it’s ended does she begin to breathe again. Sure, it was barely a minute worth of footage, but it still has the memories flourishing at the back of her mind. Funnily enough, the tabloids always wrote about them as the reckless Rock’N’Roll teens — however, if you saw them together on a regular Sunday this would be what you’d witness most of the time. 

Pretty unexciting from a media standpoint, obviously. But it was  _ them.  _

Clarke only has a single book in her nightstand drawer: Homer’s Iliad, the one he’d begged her to read for years before finally giving her his favorite copy. When she opens it, she finds a note taped to the inside, written in red ink:

 

_ Happy anniversary, Princess.  _

_ The last two years with you _

_ have been the best of my life.  _

_ I love you so much.  _

_ -Bell _

 

Although the tears are running down her cheeks now, she keeps reading the message, over and over. Of course, there’s also the Polaroid, stuck between page 361 and 362: It’s of him driving at sundown, the wind brushing through his dark hair as he smiles, ever-so-slightly. On the back, there’s a rose gold lipstick print and the written words:

 

_ THE LOVE OF  _

_ MY LIFE _

 

For the first time since her dad passed away, she cries herself to sleep. 

In the middle of the night, she is torn from slumber by her phone ringing. Fumbling her way through the darkness, she finds it beside her, wipes her eyes before she answers. Her heart stalls for a moment: From the sound of the breathing alone, she can tell that it’s him. 

“What do you want?”

A moment of silence passes. “To see you.”

While her mind is still  hazy, it takes her a while to understand that she isn’t, in fact, dreaming. By the time she plucks up the courage to speak, she realizes that her throat is raw from the crying. More than anything, she doesn’t want him to know that she’s upset. 

Running her fingers through her hair, she replies, “It’s the middle of the night. You need to get some sleep. Remember that you were just discharged?”

Clarke could’ve sworn she hears tears sticking to his voice when he says, “I know, but—I, it’s really difficult to sleep because I keep thinking about what you said about, you know, the sweater and the pictures and everything…”

_ Oh, so it did get through to him. _

Because she doesn’t respond, he continues, almost stumbling over his own words, “—And then I think about how I never thanked you for taking care of me or how I never apologized for bruising you.”

Her heart quivers. “Bellamy, that’s—”

“Fucking disgusting? Sounds about right.” 

At that, she sighs. Even though she could go on for hours about the fact that what he did  _ really  _ wasn’t so bad if you just consider the circumstances, she knows that he’ll tear himself apart for it regardless of what she believes. When they were together, she was good at distracting him from his self-loathing, at comforting him. Now, however,  _ not so much.  _ In fact, she hasn’t got any idea what to do or say.

So, in the end, she tells him her home address. 

 

* * *

_ (Part 2) _

The Bronx, New York — August 2014

 

In all earnestness, Bellamy tends to prefer the smaller, more intimate gigs because they remind him of how everything started, on a regular Friday night inside a crowded bar in Boston. As he looks out at the crowd now, a wonderful wave of familiarity sweeps through his chest; there aren’t rows upon rows of loud spectators, no flashy artificial lights — just a bunch of happy faces, his bandmates and their instruments. 

He smiles at Clarke, who’s already beaming.  _ Tonight will be great.  _

**[Raven Reyes @delinquentReyes:** LET’S FIRE UP THE BRONX 🔥🔥]

At least she doesn’t look nervous this time, which is great because they always perform their best when they’re comfortable. Behind them, Monroe has already begun to drum an easy melody, a build up to their first song of the night:  _ Lies Stick to Teeth.  _ As of right now, this song is their second most streamed on Spotify, so it should be a strong beginning. 

When Shaw and Reyes join with their electric guitar strings, the crowd erupts with cheers of anticipation. Just before she breathes the first words into the microphone, Clarke flashes a radiant, perfect grin at Bellamy.

 

_ “You gotta tell me what’s on your mind, Boy _

_ ‘Cause I’m falling behind _

_ I can’t keep up with your games no more _

_ And I don’t wanna try _

_ I’m so sick of waiting _

_ So sick of playing _

_ I’m not gonna cry.” _

 

Now it’s time for him to join in for the chorus. Some people in front of the stage seem to be singing along, but the sound of drums drown them out.

 

_ “Oh yeah, your lies they stick to teeth _

_ I can see it when you smile _

_ And I swear if I could I would leave you, alright? _

_ So don’t give me those eyes,  _

_ I won’t bear them no mind.  _

_ Let me see where you’ll be _

_ When we stop  _

_ Screwin’ each other." _

 

For some reason, young people especially seem to love break up songs when there is lots of swearing in them, as much anger as possible — and sure, some sex too. Bellamy doesn’t know exactly why, but maybe it’s because fucking your ex out of anger is somehow relatable?  Regardless, it sure as hell seems to get people fired up, if the noise in this room is at all anything to go by. Right now, every single individual in this bar is looking at the stage, and Bellamy takes that as a win. When he and Clarke wrote this song last year, they had quite a bit of fun yelling at different rates into the microphone to test what worked best. 

The time of his solo verse has come, so as the tempo of the chorus slows he grabs the microphone, keeps his eyes on Clarke’s while he sings:

 

_ “You gotta tell me what you want, Girl _

_ ‘Cause I’m over my head.  _

_ You said we were done,  _

_ But you keep coming back around. _

_ I’m so sick of fading _

_ So sick of caving  _

_ I’m not gonna hold on.” _

 

The vibrations of the music are entering his bloodstream, empowering the rush of adrenaline in his system. Midway through the concert, everyone in the room is jumping up and down to the beat, so the temperature has risen to the point where his t-shirt is sticking to his back. But they still sing their hearts out, taking in this atmosphere: Getting people excited enough to move around despite the lack of personal space is fucking amazing. Next to him, Raven is aggressively headbanging, proving that having a leg brace doesn’t limit her passion. 

For their last song, however, they abandon their preferred genre of alternative rock. Instead, to dim the atmosphere a bit, Bellamy brings out his acoustic guitar. Ending the show in a calm way seems best. 

“Alright, everyone. Let’s get chill for a moment. This one is called  _ ‘You, in the Stars’ _ , and it’s about that special person who always reminds you of who you really are.”

Drunk on nothing but the wonders of tonight, he and Clarke end up squeezing into a tiny bathroom stall, which — to their relief — appears to have been cleaned recently. Hungry, he all but crushes his mouth onto hers, and she responds without faltering, has her hand in his hair right away. When she tugs it, he groans, pressing her further up against the wall. She breaks the kiss, looks at him through her long eyelashes. 

“Tell me what you want, Babe,” he murmurs against her throat, making a needy whimper fly past her lips. 

“Your fingers.”

_ Oh Jesus,  _ she really doesn’t know how to be vague, which — he must admit — makes his chest flash with burning desire. Luckily for him, she chose to wear a little black dress for tonight’s gig instead of her usual ripped-up jeans, so there’s no zipper for him to fumble with, nothing that can make him impatient. 

Keeping his eyes locked onto hers, Bellamy slides his hand up her creamy thigh until his finger is able to hook itself in the lace fabric of her underwear. He murmurs mostly-incoherent shit about  _ how he can’t wait to tear them off _ into her ear, but hearing it still makes her breath hitch. When her knees buckle, Bellamy finally gives in, pressing the pad of his thumb to her clit and rubbing it through the fabric. 

Mewling, Clarke buries her face in his shoulder, which has him speeding up a bit until he hears her muffle a strangled moan. “ _ Please.  _ I need more,” she whispers, her voice still croaky from singing her heart out.

His chest swells with fondness. 

He knows he can’t say  _ no _ to her, so he drops to his knees, pulling her red lace panties with him as he goes. Pressing a lingering kiss to the inside of her knee, Bellamy hikes her right leg over his shoulder and asks her to slide down the wall. Once she has done it, her pussy is at level with his face; he can’t refrain from licking his lips, eager to get his mouth on her, work her slowly until she’s floating at the brink of orgasm.

It’s the hottest thing in the world: witnessing her succumb to the pleasure that he’s giving her. 

Not wanting to waste any more time, Bellamy licks into her, relishing the taste of her arousal, but the best part of it is watching Clarke bite her arm to stifle a loud gasp. Flattening his tongue, he works at her until her leisurely until her thighs are trembling and clenching around his head, which reveals thar she’s nearing the peak. Then he picks up his pace, sucking passionately at her clit and folds. Within a minute, she’s coming hard, tugging at his hair through the bliss. 

As she winds down, she  _ sobs  _ in relief. Softened by this, Bellamy pulls her into his arms, murmurs sweet nonsense into her golden hair. “If only you knew how good you taste, Baby.”

Clarke draws back, her ocean eyes beaming at him. “Well, there’s one way to find out,” she says matter-of factly before she kisses him, long and deep. In the middle of it, she grins and pulls her panties on again. Since her legs are still a little wobbly, he helps her to her feet, holds her steady in his arms for a minute.  

“You don’t want anything?” she asks curiously, raising a perfect eyebrow at him. 

After unlocking the door to the stall, Bellamy interlaces their fingers and pecks her flushed cheek. “Yeah. I want a tub of half-baked ice cream and maybe a movie. Come on. Let’s head home.”

 

* * *

 

Their loft apartment might be so tiny that they have to sleep in the living room, but it’s  _ theirs.  _ In the end, that’s all that really matters. Hell, Clarke is happy as long as they have the freezer full of Ben & Jerry’s and somewhere for her to draw. 

As soon as they have walked through the front door, she kicks off her shoes. “I love this outfit, but I’m also so uncomfortable. I never win, I guess.”

Bellamy smirks at her. “That’s a bold statement from someone who just did a great show,  _ then  _ came all over my tongue.” Unsurprisingly, Clarke chokes on thin air and her cheeks turn scarlet, but he places a lingering kiss to her forehead, chuckling, “You want to borrow a sweater or something?” 

Taking her silence as a ‘yes’, he scurries through his dresser drawers until he finds the article of clothing that he thinks she’ll love the most: a comfy, blue sweater. When he returns to her with it, she’s still flushed pink but there’s a pretty smile on her face that makes his heart skip a beat. 

“This yours?” she says, basically hugging the fabric. Bringing it to her nose, she inhales the scent of it, closing her eyes. “Yes… Thanks, Bell.”

Unbothered by his presence, she unzips her dress, letting it pool at the ground by her feet. Bellamy feels heat rush to his cheeks at the sight of her, which is weird considering that she’s not even fully naked. Still, this woman right here is  _ gorgeous _ , but before she is anything else she’s his best friend, someone he treasures. And yes, she makes him feel like a prepubescent teen, there’s no use in denying it. 

Then she slips on the sweater, which cuts off at the middle of her thighs. The navy blue brings out the color of her eyes and makes hair look even more golden than usual. 

_ Fuck…  _

“Woah. You look beautiful.”

At that comment, her smile turns lopsided, and she steps into his arms. “Is it because I really look, like,  _ yours  _ right now?” 

Shaking his head, he pecks the corner of her mouth. “Nah. You’re not mine. But you look really comfortable right now, and call me cheesy but I  _ love  _ that… You want ice cream?” 

He’s already walked past her, heading towards the kitchen when she calls out, “On one condition!” making him whip around at once. Even from a distance, he recognizes the lustful sparks in her eyes, and they make him lose his breath before she continues, “That I get to ride you after.” 

“You’re a fucking menace, Princess,” he jokes, winking at her. 

Without question, the best investment they made together after moving into the apartment has to be the sound system; it makes even the most generic songs worth listening to. And without a question, the most joyous thing in the world is watching Clarke dance around to Grouplove’s ‘ _ Do You Love Someone’,  _ still holding her bowl of half-baked ice cream. 

 

_ “I can never seem to get all of my words across _

_ But you say I’m someone, you say I’m something free _

_ Yeah, I wish I saw myself the way you see me now _

_ ‘Cause you see that someone I always want to be.” _

 

_ God. She’s a fucking dream... _

A dream stuck in his reality. 

When she puts the bowl down in order to jump around and sing into an invisible microphone, he cheers her on from his place on the pull-out couch. It has always been clear to him, in all the years that he has known her, that Clarke Griffin is her own person and a free spirit like no other. In this moment, she’s jumping around like it’s nobody’s business. He’s not even afraid to admit that she has him  _ whipped.  _

He could gaze at her for hours.

But when the song ends, the twinkle in Clarke’s eyes reveal that she hasn’t forgotten about her  _ one condition.  _ Although he should’ve been prepared for it, everything considered, his cock still twitches when she straddles his waist. It’s unreal, and maybe he’ll never fully grasp how on Earth it’s possible for them to just  _ be  _ like this. 

They spend their days creating music together. At night, they’re intertwined like two halves of a whole. Nothing has ever been more right than this. 

She doesn’t remove the sweater that he let her borrow while she rides him, fucks him deep into their mattress. Biting his lower lip through the pleasure, Bellamy lets his hands wander below the hem, up the length of her spine. Then he forces his eyes to open, just for a second, to watch this:

Her eyes have fallen shut, her cheeks and neck flushed pink. Though she seems so immersed in this steady rhythm, Bellamy finds himself unable to resist the temptation of disrupting it by touching her breasts. “Fuck, Baby. Riding me so well.  _ Amazing. _ ” 

“Oh, Bellamy—”

When she moans, he wraps his fingers in her hair, thrusts upwards into her, as hard as he can manage. She gasps, clutching the sweater for support, and the sight sends an unexpected rush through him that has him thinking:  _ Fuck it. He’ll never take that sweater back. _

Soon, it’ll smell of lavender and vanilla infused with a bit of pine from his cologne, and that’s perfect. That’s the way it should be. 

She looks better in it than him anyway. 


	4. Breakable Bones

_ (Part 1) _

New York City, New York — October 2014

 

One of the first things he discovered about Clarke Griffin is that she could probably sleep through an earthquake. Every morning when the alarm goes off, she doesn’t stir, but he always gets up to scramble some eggs, water his precious plants on the balcony and — most important of all — make a pot of black coffee. Once it’s done brewing, he brings some of it to her in a mug. 

Only the sound of his acoustic guitar strings can pull her from the heavy sleep. When he starts playing this morning, she grunts low in her throat. Bellamy feels his heart soften as she sits up, her tired eyes falling slowly on the coffee mug. 

“Thanks, Bell,” she says with an adorable yawn, making him smile.

Unable to resist the temptation, he moves up to headboard to peck her lips, and she  _ giggles _ , her cheeks flushing a little for whatever reason, so he kisses them, too. For a minute, her blue eyes sparkle at him, but then she turns her attention to the sketchpad on her nightstand: Lately, she’s been working on the cover art for their album, and it’s already amazing, even though she insists that it’s a ‘ _ rough draft’ _ . 

_ Yeah, right.  _

It’s six black silhouettes (the  _ Delinquents  _ band members) standing shoulder-to-shoulder, with a background of what looks like war-torn New York skyscrapers. Sure, she might say it’s not finished, but everyone in the band has been raving about it since she shared it in their Messenger chat, and — at least in his eyes — it’s damn-near  _ perfect,  _ because it really captures the essence of the band. 

She works on it for half an hour, but he finally convinces her to have some breakfast with him when her stomach starts to loudly protest. 

“Scrambled eggs and toast is always a win,” he remarks with a wink as she starts wolfing it down. 

Smiling, Clarke replies, “Everything you cook is always a win, which is good because I would set the damn kitchen on fire.”

Of course, he wishes he could deny that, but it’s actually true, even if slightly exaggerated: His girlfriend stands by the fact that she doesn’t know how to boil spaghetti. Nevertheless, he loves cooking so the situation actually works in their favor. Despite this, they do end up eating take-out a lot of the time, especially if they have a late-night performance somewhere in the city. 

And they always have ice cream in the freezer for their long composition days. 

(It’s either that, or five pots of coffee per person...)

In fact, they’re supposed to be writing songs today, but the mere prospect of going to the studio seems exhausting like nothing else. So he rests his forehead against her shoulder, asking, “Do you wanna stay in today? Please say ‘yes’.” 

Chuckling, she ruffles his hair a little, which doesn’t really matter considering that it’s always messy in the morning. “Yeah, let’s do that. But…”  _ Oh damn, here comes one of her infamous ‘conditions’.  _ “We also haven’t had sex in two days.”

_ Boom. There it is.  _

Bellamy snorts out a laugh, placing his hand on her exposed inner thigh. “I know. We’re practically celibate.” Even though she gives him a light shove for teasing her, she captures his lips in a sweet kiss afterwards, laughing against his mouth. “You can join me in the shower, if you want.”   
  


 

To say that their shower is cramped would be the understatement of the century, since it’s not much bigger than their fridge, but the narrow space ensures that they’re close without effort. The water is the perfect temperature, and it doesn’t fall too heavily upon them, so there’s no rush. Her skin is soft as velvet against his, covered in tiny beads of water; he gathers them with his fingertips while his hands travel slowly up her spine. 

She releases a delicate moan into the inch of space between them. To know that he can get her to make sounds of pleasure never fails to make his chest flash with pride and affection — the blend of these these emotions has him feeling light-headed. 

Then she squeezes his bicep, taking him by surprise. “You think I’m always gonna let you run things, huh? Do you even know who I am?” 

When she looks at him, he recognizes the electric, lustful look in her eyes, which nearly knocks him off his feet. It certainly makes his breath hitch in his throat. Only when she kisses his pulse point does he inhale again. 

_ He’s a goner.  _ And yes, he sure as hell knows who she is: A woman carved from mountain rock and ivory, full of determination and strength. Laughing wholeheartedly, she tells him to face the shower wall; a demand, which he obeys without questioning it for a moment. Excitement makes his heart sizzle, but she keeps it slow, tracing her lips down the back of his neck, along the length of his spine until…

Her lips graze the globes of his ass and the back of his thighs, causing his knees to buckle. “ _ Fuck.  _ What—?”

“You like it?” is what she asks, curious, and he hums in response. Bellamy releases an incredulous laugh, running a palm across his face. Honestly, he just never thought she’d do something like  _ this.  _ Still, he tells her to continue, bracing himself against the cool shower wall, aware that he won’t be able to keep himself standing otherwise. 

She experiments with it, placing open-mouthed kisses to his backside, but at no point does she seem embarrassed about doing it, and even though Bellamy feels his cheeks flush it’s very difficult to resist the urge to praise her, to tell her how much he wants her right now, passion burning like a strong fire in the lower pit of his stomach. 

Out of nowhere, she reaches out and grabs his hardening cock, works at him slowly. When she twists her wrist at the base, a growl tears lose from the confines of his throat. “Shit, Clarke... ” the combined stimuli is almost too much, especially as her strokes become firmer and her lips more insistent. Fireworks go off behind his eyelids until he has no control of the strained moans that escape him. 

“ _ Uh! God… _ ” Leaning his forehead against the tiles, Bellamy feels his legs wobble from the intense pleasure.

As if he weren’t already screwed, Clarke draws back and says, her voice much darker than usual, “Turn around. I want you to come in my mouth.”

“ _ Jesus.  _ O—okay,” is the only words he can stammer, his mind almost numb at this point. Then he turns, managed to catch a glimpse of her kneeling in front of him before he takes him into her mouth, and he moans out loud, nearly banging his head against the wall. 

“You’re doing so good for me,” she tells him in between the leisured sucks, caressing his hipbone with her thumb. 

Wrapping his fingers in the wet locks of her hair, Bellamy tries to regain get himself under control, hold back the release for just a couple minutes, so that he can make this last longer. For a second, he thinks he’s successful; that’s until she circles her tongue around the head of his shaft and moans at the back of her throat. 

He comes apart right away, barely keeps himself upright, but even as the strong wave of release surges through his body he hears her gasp a little and is immediately struck by a sense of panic. 

_ Oh no. It was probably too much for her.  _

But when he opens his eyes, the question  _ ‘are you alright?’  _ lingering on his lips, she wipes her mouth using the back of her hand and stands, stepping right into his space again; her gaze caries both playfulness and confidence. 

“Never underestimate me.” 

_ Christ. He is so royally screwed _ . Still, there’s not a single part of him that minds.

 

* * *

 

_ (Part 2) _

Boston, Massachusetts — February 2019

While waiting for him, she busies herself by making mint tea. Outside, the rough winds of February are rustling in the trees, which can’t possibly be good for his recovery. More than anything, she needs the distraction, because simply staring at the front door will make her lose her mind; if it’s not already. It seems to be torn up at the moment, just like her heart, and the tears are lined up in throat, creating a bitter taste in her mouth every time she tries to swallow them. 

When he finally knocks on the door, it feels like years have passed. The sound of it is so soft that she could’ve easily missed it. But it strikes her chest. 

_ Fuck. God… _

He looks absolutely  _ distraught;  _ she can see as much even in the dim light of the hallway: He’s almost as pale as he was right before he collapsed in her arms, his dark eyes are puffy and shadowed, his broad shoulders slumped. 

And he’s shaking. 

“I’m sorry,” his voice cracks under the weight of a half-sob. Briefly forgetting that she was ever angry at him, Clarke pulls him into the apartment and cups his face, which has the coldness from his cheeks seeping into her fingertips. He is usually so full of warmth, also when he’s angry; in fact, that particular emotion makes him seem like fire impersonating a human being. 

When she brushes a dark curl of hair off his forehead, he closes his eyes at the touch. “I’m so sorry,” he croaks again. “You probably don’t want me here.” 

_ ‘I just cried myself to sleep because I missed you!’  _ screams her heart, and yet she doesn’t say it. Now is not the right time. She needs to get him warmed up. With that goal in mind, she pulls him into the kitchen and hands him the cup of tea. “Drink up. You’re completely frozen… Did you walk here?”

He nods before taking the first careful sip. “It’s—it’s only ten blocks.” 

_ What? He lives that close?  _ Well, it has to be a lie, because there’s no way he’s moved back to Boston, with his solo career taking off, he should certainly be in New York or Los Angeles— not so close to home. It’s not right. 

Because she doesn’t reply right away, he jumps to his own defense. “I swear I didn’t know you still lived in the area. I finished my European tour and decided to move back for a while, because—well, I missed it here.” 

_ Oh wow. That’s why she came back, too.  _

Although the tea seems to serve its purpose, he’s still shaking after he’s finished it, which is all the more apparent once he’s sitting on her couch, looking at his folded hands. For a brief minute, she decides to go into the bedroom, where she is able to breathe, then she grabs his old sweater off the bed, along with the crumbled note that she found in her nightstand drawer, wedged in between the two last pages of The Iliad. 

His eyes are trained on her as soon as she appears in the doorway to the living room, carrying two remnants of their broken relationship. 

“You remember what you wrote?” is what she asks carefully as she holds out the piece of paper. He looks at it for the fraction of a second and clenches his jaw.

“Not exactly.”

Of course, she knows he’s lying. The few words that he wrote are so profound that there’s no way they could’ve ever left his brain. Not really, even after all this time; she’s sure of  it. 

 

_ Clarke,  _

_ Please don’t worry too much. Put this on, and we’ll talk about it when I get home.  _

_ I’m not sure what you wanted, but we have time, Babe. _

_ I love you. _

_ We’ll figure it out.  _

As it turns out, they didn’t have time. She left an hour later, never came back. No warning sign, no explanation, no viable excuse — just a brutal, unspoken goodbye. It must’ve destroyed him, and before she heard him sing that cover last night she’d been able to ignore that reality. But since then it’s been staring her in the face. 

She can no longer run.

Suddenly he speaks, nearly startling her, “You know, I really thought you were. Pregnant, I mean.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

After all, it’s not often that your period is almost three weeks late and none of the tests come back positive. She took eight. However, she soon realized that her delayed period was probably due to the emotional stress of her dad dying. 

When he sniffles, she doesn’t hesitate to place her hand above his just like she did in the hospital, and this time he reacts, interlacing their fingers. Her heart swells with fondness from the familiarity of it; the silent comfort, the soothing nature of his touch. 

At this point, she owes him the truth more than anything, even though she could lose him because of it — if he isn’t already so far away that she can no longer reach him, his big heart. 

So she tells him, “I think I actually wanted to be pregnant,” and he turns towards her, his eyes wide and perplexed. “It would’ve given me something else to focus on. At the time, all I could think about was my—my dad in that casket.”

“Does that mean you would’ve stayed?” 

Clarke nods slowly, squeezing her eyes shut, partly because the truth hurts and partly because she expects an emotional eruption from him, which wouldn’t be at all unwarranted. But instead, he places his arm around her to pull her against his side. Her heart twitches in her ribcage when she realizes that she fits there as perfectly as always. 

Somehow, despite that they’ve changed, their bodies are still molded to interlock. Without thinking about it, she lets her head fall to his broad shoulder, and he shifts slightly to nuzzle the crook of her neck.

_ What is even happening right now?  _ Following the spitfire of bitterness, of anger that have lasted for more than a week, they are…  _ cuddling _ . Maybe she’s stuck in an unrealistic dream, one that she will be pulled out of at any moment to find herself still lying in bed with dried mascara stains underneath her eyes. 

“Did you ever think of coming back?” With that question, Bellamy draws back a little, gazes into her eyes, but this time it’s a much softer connection. 

“All the time. I  _ wanted  _ to come back, you have to believe that.”

He sighs, and the moment crumbles as he pulls all the way back to look at the sweater, seemingly awestruck that she kept it for so long. 

Her voice small and ragged due to the tight lump in her throat, Clarke asks, “You want it back?” causing him to look at her as though she just poured salt into an open wound; he even flinches a little, making her heart drop to the bottom of her ribcage. 

“Of course I don’t want it back!” 

“I just thought—”

Bellamy runs his palm across the length of his face. “I loved you, dammit! That doesn’t change because you broke my heart. Sometimes I wish it did; losing you would’ve hurt a lot less. I  _ gave  _ you that sweater. It’s yours. If I take it back now, you’ll just be all over it, and I can’t—I can’t fucking handle that.”

Even though he’s being loud, anger isn’t the cause of it. His words are fraying around the edges, crumbling from desperation. This hurts a lot more than his fury, and she is at a loss, unaware of what she can do or say to patch things up. Then it hits her that maybe she just  _ can’t  _ make it better anymore, she’s fucked it up too deeply. It’s too late. And it is really over. 

Crying is selfish, not unlike everything else that she has done. But the tears are carving their way through her eyes, and she can’t hold them at bay; Clarke feels them spill over her cheeks, so she clutches the soft fabric of his sweater. 

“You said you still have a guitar in your closet… Can I see it?”

Although the question is odd given the circumstances, she nods, hears him leave and return shortly after. As she sniffles, trying to bite back more tears, the soft strum of strings reaches her ears. Sure, her vision is blurry, but she doesn’t need to see anything to understand that he intends to play something. 

It’s so surprising that her heart flips in her ribcage, forgetting that it hurts, if only for a minute. The melody that he’s playing is unfamiliar but soothing nonetheless, and soon he begins to sing, the lyrics flowing off his lips so naturally. 

_ “Persephone, I see _

_ the violets in your hair _

_ Purple like the dress she wore  _

_ When I kissed her at our front door.  _

_ Oh, and the winter in my heart _

_ Has lasted for a century. _

_ Maybe only a year or two _

_ But there’s nothing I can do. _

_ I miss the spring in us _

_ I miss the sun _

_ And all of the sweetness. _

_ …” _

_ “Persephone, I see _

_ What love has done to me.” _

  
  


Just like ‘ _ Chicago Rain’  _ this song is very clearly about her: The lyrics leave her stunned, and her tears stop falling. All she can is listen to how his warm, dark voice produces the words that emerge as though they are soaked in honey, and the gentleness of them blends with the pain so effortlessly. It’s beautiful, breathtaking.

And somehow, it comforts her. 

“I read your interview with Entertainment,” she says as soon as he’s finished singing the last syllable. 

Taken aback, Bellamy blinks at her and runs his fingers through the back of his messy hair like he used to do all the time, mostly when he was feeling flustered or in any other way awkward. Now, he starts strumming the guitar strings again, his dark eyes are fleeting somewhat. “Yeah… I never intended you to.” 

Well, that’s obvious considering what he said during it. It’s a complete coincidence that she  _ did  _ read it, acting on nothing except emotional impulse. Clarke nods, worrying her lower lip. “Just like you never expected me to hear your new songs, I presume.” 

“I know you, Clarke. I understood that for you to walk away like that, you had to cut any piece of your old life away. You never do anything half-heartedly. You had to have thrown it all away,” he says. “And yet, you still kept this guitar, you didn’t delete the photos or burn my sweater. Why?” 

Listening to him talk about her like this reminds her of just how well he knew her. Somehow, Bellamy was always able to understand her reasons, but the one thing he still hasn’t fully figured out is why she left him, why she — at the time — felt that she  _ had  _ to leave him. 

“Isn’t that obvious? I never  _ wanted  _ to leave you, Bell.” 

Clarke only realizes that she used his old nickname when his jaw begins to quiver. “Don’t call me that.”

A tense moment passes before she decides against apologizing. “You’ve called me ‘Princess’. What’s the damn difference?”

Sure, she might despise the pain that she caused him, but she won’t for a moment stand for his unfairness. If the way his jaw slacks at her words is any indication, he regrets it, as he should. Avoiding her gaze, Bellamy puts the guitar away, then swallows his pride, and — judging by his facial expression — the taste of it is bitter. At last, he mutters, “There is no difference. Sorry.”

Clarke sighs, her annoyance deflating like a balloon. “Look, we gotta stop hurting each other.”

When he doesn’t respond, she tells him that she has to get some sleep, since she has a night shift at the ER tomorrow. If she isn’t well-rested for that, she won’t be able to perform her job like she should. 

Once she’s said this an unknown emotion floods Bellamy’s eyes, and it takes her a while to identify it as disappointment. Nevertheless, he still breathes, “Okay. Sure. I suppose I should also get going—”

“No way, I’m not letting you go out there in the cold again. You’re still recovering, remember?” 

Although her insistence on keeping him inside throws him off for a few seconds, he must know that there’s no point in arguing and offers to sleep on the couch; however, she is also aware of his long-term struggle with back problems, so he won’t be doing so on her watch. 

That’s how they end up in the same bed, for the first time in three years: there should be a considerable distance between them, but when they’ve been lying in the silent darkness for a long time, the emotional turmoil hindering their ability to drift off, Bellamy pulls her close. Their limbs entangle easily, the scent of his cologne calms her mind faster than a lullaby. 

The last thing she feels is his thumb gently caressing her cheekbone. 


	5. Eros

_ (Part 1) _

Boston, Massachusetts — February 2019

 

How last night ended seems so surreal that when she awakens, shivers shoot down her spine as she realizes that the thing moving against her cheek is Bellamy’s chest, rising and falling slowly at the break of dawn. The sun is just waking up, too, spilling soft violet, pink and orange through the sheer curtains, which makes the room seem nothing short of  _ magical.  _

There’s the familiar scent of pine from Bellamy’s skin, blending with the fresh one of laundry detergent, and Clarke wishes this moment would never die, that they could stay like this: be at complete peace with each other. It’s just a shame that they can’t be serene together unless at least one of them is sleeping. 

But then it dawns on her; he isn’t sleeping at all. She’s slept in Bellamy’s arms enough times to know what his breathing sounds like when he’s in a dream state. Scooting up a bit, Clarke presses the tip of her nose against his freckled cheek and whispers, “Good morning,” making him jolt a little in surprise. “Sorry to wake you.”

He grumbles, suppressing a yawn, and the sound tugs at her heartstrings. “I’ve been awake for a few minutes. Best damn sleep I’ve had in three years.”

Another thing she learnt from sleeping in the same bed as him for so many nights is that his filter doesn’t really start working until he’s had his first cup of coffee. Until then you can count on him for the pure truth; this one strikes her like lightning, because he isn’t the only one who’s had trouble sleeping in the past years. 

“Yeah, I know,” she breathes, cuddling against his side. Instead of pushing her away like she’d feared, he caresses her arm with his thumb. “Sleeping alone sucks.” 

“I actually wrote a song about it,” he says, twisting his head to gaze into her eyes. “It’s called ‘ _ Clean Sheets’. _ ” Like they used to, the soft shades of earthy brown make her heart feel fuzzy.

For a minute she allows herself to forget that they’re not together anymore and kisses his sharp jawline. He hums deep in his throat, sending vibrations through her body, so she does it again, and again until he leans into it, shifting onto his side. 

Her hand tangles itself within the chaotic curls of his hair without hesitation.

Bellamy pecks the corner of her mouth, still gazing at her through his long eyelashes. It hits her then:  _ God, he’s asking for permission.  _

Clarke nods, nuzzling him a bit for the sake of encouragement. Cupping her cheek, he closes the remaining inch of space between them, his lips capturing hers in a kiss that is in every way different from the last one: His lips are moving gently against hers, as if trying to find out how they fit together again when they’re not fighting a war. 

Deepening the kiss, Clarke caresses the back of neck, creating goosebumps at the skin there. When she moans into it, he draws back for a moment to look at her and swallows hard. “Are you sure this is okay?”

“Yeah… More than sure,” she tells him, and she grabs the hem of her tank top, pulling it off in one swift motion. His hand trails along her spine, but his eyes remain fixed on hers, as if he’s ashamed of wanting to look at her. In the alley, she wasn’t exposed to him from the waist up, because she didn’t want to be, but now… 

“Please. Look at me.”

Bellamy presses a lingering kiss to her forehead before letting his gaze drop to her breasts, and he immediately starts drawing invisible patterns on the globes with his calloused fingertips. Then he wets his lips, but can’t seem to hold himself back any longer. Still, she flips around of her own accord, making it easier for him to position himself on top of her. For now, however, he keeps some space between their bodies, his eyes marvelling at her like a priceless piece of art at a museum.

Then he lowers himself a bit to adorn her skin with kisses; his full lips graze the shell of her ear, the curved line of her jaw, the column of her throat; he lingers there until her breath hitches around a needy moan. The first time his trail stops is when his mouth encounters the tattoo above her collarbone:  _ Monet’s water lilies  _ enframed in a diamond shape. 

“I remember I was there with you when you got this one,” he reminisces softly, tracing the outline of it with his fingertips. 

His words make a small smile pull at the corners of her mouth. “Yeah, it was my first one. You had to hold my hand through it.”

Without saying anything more, he lifts her right arm and turns it, probably to see if she still has the one they got together — she  _ does _ , and she never thought of having it removed because it’s the one that she loves the most: it’s two hands, different in size, reaching for each other’s touch; they’re just an inch away from that special connect. It perfectly symbolizes their closeness. 

“You still have yours?” she asks, and he nods slowly, clenching his jaw a little. 

For some reason, it makes her want to cry. But it’s quickly forgotten when Bellamy diverts his attention back to kissing her uninked skin. He sucks her nipples into his mouth until they’re hardened, and she mewls, feeling her cheeks flush with heat, because  _ sure  _ he used to do this all the time back in the day but she’d managed to forget how much she loved it.

Clearly,  _ he  _ hasn’t, and he seems dead-set on reminding her of her weak spots by lingering at them: first, it was her throat, her breasts, and now it’s her ribcage. However, he’s only been kissing her there for a minute before his eyes fall on another tattoo. 

He swallows, draws back to trace his thumb over it. His voice ragged, he says, “This one’s new.” 

It’s a simple word, written in cursive black letters right where her heart is beating:  _ Dad.  _ She had it made one week after she left New York, but she can’t tell him that. In fact, she can’t tell him anything about it, since her throat is being strained by a lump at the size of Mars. 

Understanding, Bellamy simply caresses her ribs and moves on; his lips leave a garden of beautiful flowers down her belly, the part of her body that she’s the most insecure about. When he reaches her thighs, she’s breathless, floating amongst the billions of stars behind her eyelids. 

She never thought he’d be this gentle with her again. 

Slowly, Bellamy pulls her gray sleep shorts off, and without the slightest hesitation or self-doubt, Clarke parts her legs for him. His breath hitches, which she attributes to surprise, but he doesn’t move. In the end, she opens her eyes to find him  _ crying,  _ and the sight has a brutal knife stabbing her heart. 

_ Oh no.  _ He’s seen them, the bruises. By now, they must be yellowing in color, and yet they’re still noticeable against her pale skin. Sniffling, he leans down to kiss them, making her feel desperate. 

“Bellamy, you’re not that kind of man,” she tries reaching for him, but he doesn’t budge, so she adds, “ _ Please— _ Will you just look at me?”

This time, she catches his attention, or — most likely — it was the crack in her voice that did. Tears lingering in his dark eyes, he moves up, and she cups his face to make sure he doesn’t try to avoid her. Forcing as much power into her fragile voice as possible, she tells him, “You’re  _ not _ that kind of man. You’re the gentlest man I know.”

“But I—”

“Listen, you never meant to bruise me. I know how sorry you are.” Even after all this, he still looks pained. Clarke lifts his hand, gently kisses his fingertips. “I bet your back was covered in scratches after that night, correct?”

His jaw slackens. “Yeah, but that’s not the same thing.”

Smiling, Clarke raises her eyebrows. “Isn’t it?”

To her relief, Bellamy doesn’t seem to know how to argue with that. Instead, their lips find one another again, meet like the ocean meets the shore. This time, it’s less careful and more passionate; she can taste the saltiness of the tears that just fell on his skin, but it doesn’t hold her back. Without breaking the kiss, she helps him remove his sweater, licks into his mouth in sheer appreciation once his warm skin touches hers. 

Unlike the night beside Atlantis, they don’t rush things; there’s no battle, no anger or violence, and the heat that builds between their bodies is not one of fury. The hard lines of his abs rub against her nipples from time to time, causing her to moan. 

_ It’s so fucking familiar.  _

He’s all muscle and pain, swept in soft skin like a Greek warrior. Not only that, but feeling his weight on her like this again after three years is indescribable. When he’d fucked her last week, he’d done anything in his power not to look at her, burying his face in the crook of her neck, but right now he can’t take his eyes off her. 

They kiss until time melts away, the sun rising on their bodies and creating new shades of pink, purple and orange as it goes. By the time he slips inside her, the entire room swept in lavender and fuschia, which looks even more stunning against his bronze skin. 

“Are you doing okay?” Bellamy asks, his voice gruff yet still kind. Then he wipes a lone tear off the corner of her eye, where it had been lingering. 

“Yeah,” she breathes, keeping the rest of her tears at bay; the emotion is stirring in her chest, making her heart feel like a useless pile of jelly. “I—I never thought I’d feel this way again.” Once she’s said this, he kisses her cheek and hikes her leg a little higher up on his back, which makes it easier for him to thrust deeper. 

“ _ Oh God. _ ” This time her words are nothing short of a sob, and he immediately stills his hips. 

“Do you want me to stop?” His brow is furrowed in concern as he interlaces their fingers, but she shakes her head frantically, questioning whether he remembers all the non-verbal signs that she used to give him to highlight pleasure or emotion. 

“I’m just afraid of hurting you.”

Resting her forehead against his, Clarke assures him, “You won’t.” With that, she offers him a smile and adds, “Let me take care of you for a while.” 

She gives his chest a light push to indicate what she means. Swallowing, Bellamy lets himself fall backwards, so that she can sink down on him, allowing herself little time to adjust to it before she grinds down. 

“Fuck…” he curses, encircling her waist to support her. In this new position, the feeling of his cock inside her is  _ something else _ , in the sense that she has complete control of how deep it hits. 

When she places her hands on his sternum, her fingers easily find the inked band tattoo: It symbolizes his favorite song of their first album, which is ‘ _ You, in the Stars’ _ . The first three words of the title are written in cursive letters next to a beautiful arrange of inked stars, drawn in different sizes. 

Years ago, whenever she was on top he’d begin thrusting up into her at some point as he got close to the edge. This time, however, he places himself fully at her mercy, lets her ride him at a slow pace, taking as much of his length as possible with each movement until he’s panting. 

“You feel so good around me,” he rasps, causing her skin to flush. “Fuck, Baby, I can’t—”

“It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

Moments later, she feels him swell inside her. The last time they had sex she’d been so caught up in her anger that she hadn’t been able to focus on how  _ amazing  _ that sensation is. She keeps thrusting a little through his release, swallowing his every moan with sweet kisses. 

The process of winding down starts immediately after he’s discarded of the condom; her brain is all fuzzy with emotion, so she snuggles against his chest and tries in earnest not cry. But of course it doesn’t work.

“Hey…” he says, cupping her cheek to make her look at him, and she sees the tears that have sprung forward in his eyes as well. “We’ll be okay. You were right; we just need to stop hurting each other.”

With those comforting words, he kisses her, long and deep, clearly relishing every second of it. “This isn’t gonna be like the last time, you know? I’m staying right here until you tell me to get the hell out.”

At that, she can’t help but snort out a teary laugh. 

“Oh, and also…” Now he’s smiling, looking brighter than she’s seen him in three years, which only makes her want to cry harder, because her heart has yearned for this. For  _ so damn  _ long. “I’m not leaving until we’re even. You haven’t come yet.”

“Bellamy, I’m not keeping score.”

“But  _ I  _ am. So…” he nuzzles her, chuckling a bit, and it’s contagious; she feels the warmth of it spread through her bones. “What do you want?”

“I get to choose?”

His eyes crinkling at the corners, he presses a soft kiss to her jawline. “Of course you get to choose.”

_ Well, then it’s no question.  _ And if Bellamy’s smug facial expression is anything to go by, he knows this — he knows what she’s going to choose. In fact, before she’s spoken her desire out loud he’s settled between her legs and is caressing the inside of her knee. Still, he tells her, “I need to hear you say it.” 

She grins, fighting the urge to rub her thighs together. “Eat me out, please.” 

“Oh, so now you have manners, huh? Nice.” 

Before she can respond to his deadpan comment, he has flattened his tongue against her, and the intense shudder of pleasure that runs through her body renders her speechless. Clarke buries her hand in his soft hair, knowing that he doesn’t mind if she tugs at it. 

Bellamy eats her out like he has something to prove, as if she doesn’t remember how fucking  _ amazing  _ he is at it. His tongue reaches places inside her that she’d forgotten even existed, that make colorful fireworks go off in her lower belly. Within a couple minutes, he has to hold her thighs to keep them from squeezing to tightly around his head and to lock them in place on the mattress. 

“Oh, Bell—Please, I…” she stammers, breathless, causing him to move away for a moment to ask what she needs, his voice full of care. “Can you… can you move a bit higher, please?”

“You mean like  _ this _ ?” Then he takes her clit between his lips, sucks gently until she produces a sound that is somewhere between a sob, a gasp and a moan. After this, Bellamy keeps working at her like this, and needless to say, she doesn’t last long, reaching the high within a short minute. 

But he doesn’t let up, licking at her until her juices run out, until she’s biting down at her own arm to keep from crying out. In the end, it doesn’t really work. “ _ Bellamy! _ ” Honestly, she must be yanking at his hair right now, but he complain. Nevertheless, he takes his mouth off her to give her some time to come to her senses.

 

The morning grows older as they rest in each other’s arms, the sunlight turning golden and spilling onto their skin. Right now, they’re a mess of limbs against the white, crisp sheets. Clarke traces the outline of the inked acoustic guitar on the inside of his bicep. But her favorite one of his will always be the Earth between his shoulder blades, an ode to the Greek mythology figure that he relates to the most:  _ Atlas.  _

The titan who was forced to carry the weight of the universe. 

(Of course, she still remembers a lot of the stories that he read to her during their lazy days)

“God, I’ve missed making love to you,” he says suddenly, an endearing smile stretching the corners of his lips apart. Sometimes, when he speaks, Bellamy sounds a bit like a poet from the nineteen hundreds, and she’s delighted that the years haven’t torn away that trait. 

“Yeah, I’ve missed it, too.”

Bellamy kisses the top of her head, letting his fingertips dance across her bare back, where there is another tattoo: a simple sketch of a curvy woman, with some flowers around her. To this day she still remembers him encouraging her to get that specific one, because she was being indecisive as always. It’s interesting that although he has been a big influence on the ink on her body, she’s never wanted any of it removed. 

Maybe that’s the same reason why she hasn’t thrown out the sweater, or burned the photos. No matter what it was unthinkable to delete him from her life completely.

“You want some coffee?”

At that, his smile widens. “Sounds amazing. Do you still make it strong enough to kill a small animal?”

“You betcha.”

When she moves out of bed, he offers her the sweater that he was wearing last night, a burgundy one, and as soon as she pulls it on, its comfort seeps into her bones and the scent of him envelopes her, making her heart flutter. 

 

* * *

 

( _ Part 2 _ )

New York City, New York — December 2014

 

**ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY EXCLUSIVE:**

**MEET THE FRONT FACES OF ‘DELINQUENTS’**

(By: Anya Morgane)

 

A couple months ago, most of the country had not the faintest idea who ‘Delinquents’ were. If you ask one of the lead singers of the rising alt-rock band,  **_Bellamy Blake_ ** (18), he’ll claim that the band is still relatively unknown, and while that might be true, these six young adults from Boston, MA are on the rise to fame. 

His co-lead singer,  **_Clarke Griffin_ ** (18) says she likes to poke fun at his modesty whenever the situation calls for it. 

**GRIFFIN:** I’m not afraid to admit that we’ve written a couple of bangers, you know? But ol’ grandpa here, he doesn’t like to boast. It doesn’t matter, though. I love that about him.

**BLAKE:** The whole song-writing process is definitely the most nerve-wrecking for me personally, because I keep wanting to go back and perfect the craft. Clarke, however, she’s more nervous when it comes to performances, so we balance each other out in that sense. 

The people who turned on the radio in the past months haven’t been able to do so without hearing  _ Delinquents’  _ most recent singles, that is: ‘Lies Stick to Teeth’ and ‘Utopia’. Blake and Griffin confess to being the brains behind the lyrics but are determined to give credit where it’s due when it comes to the finished product. 

**BLAKE:** Without Reyes and Shaw on the strings, or Monroe on the drums the band wouldn’t be what it is. They’re so talented, and we love them like family. Also, we gotta hand it out to Monty Green and Jasper Jordan, our amazing sound technicians/producers who make sure all our songs sound cool. 

When it comes to the backstory of  _ Delinquents,  _ the two frontmen are much more tight-lipped, saying that they do not wish to disclose ‘personal information’ about their high school years or go into great detail about how the band was formed. The only thing that they were willing to share is that it all started in Shaw’s basement. 

**GRIFFIN:** He had a mini-fridge down there with all the sodas that you could imagine, and a game of darts. He was the coolest kid in high school, I can tell you that much. We spent a lot of time there, the six of us.

**BLAKE:** [laughs] It was bound to begin there, honestly. It was the  _ Delinquents  _ cave before  _ Delinquents  _ was even a thing. 

[ **Photo attachment:** Black and white photo of the band members as they all link arms and look at the screaming crowd after the concert at ARKFEST. Bellamy and Clarke are in the middle of the shot.]

Entertainment Weekly was also given this exclusive interview with the lead singers inside their home: a small loft apartment in the Western part of The Bronx. When they were asked about their living arrangements, they made it clear that they didn’t see anything unusual about it:

**BLAKE:** We work together, and we share an apartment for practical purposes. If [Griffin] has an idea for a song, she doesn’t have to call me to make plans, because I’m right there. Always. 

**GRIFFIN:** We rarely argue about it. I mean, he gets a little pissed off when I leave the fridge door open for too long, and if he snores it just about drives me up the wall. But we manage more than fine. 

 

(Blake wants to make it clear that he does not, in fact, snore. Ever.)

When they are asked about their favorite songs of the first album (Utopia, 2014), they say that they have the tattoos to prove it. However, Griffin is the only one willing to show it. She lifts her blonde hair up, so that the curve black letters spelling  ‘ ἔρως’  across the back of her neck. 

**GRIFFIN:** Do you understand? It’s ‘Eros’ written in ancient Greek. I’m thinking about cutting my hair short, so that people can see it better. 

Blake reveals that his band tattoo is on his chest, and that it symbolizes the acoustic song called ‘You, in the Stars’, which gained popularity following a  _ Delinquents _ performance in The Bronx. As of right now, the song is #5 on the most streamed songs in the state of New York. 

**BLAKE:** Even though ‘You, in the Stars’ is my favorite song on the album, my favorite song  _ to write  _ was definitely ‘Lies Stick to Teeth’. It’s that angry rock song that most people can get behind, and when we were writing it our throats became sore from yelling into microphones at different pitches, because we needed to test which version would sound the best. It was great. 

_ Delinquents  _ band member Raven Reyes announced on Twitter that the band will be kicking off the New Year with their first tour. The first concert will take place in the city where it all began:  **Boston, MA on 9 February 2015.** You can buy tickets for the show  **HERE.**

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos make my day! they're like a warm hug of encouragement. please tell me what you thought 💞
> 
> you can also come yell at me on twitter or tumblr (@selflessbellamy)


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